A Dream, a Note, and Dream Again

i'm sitting on the picnic table where we had our first real conversion. it's afternoon, near sunset, and everything is picturesque.

no, no.

no, not quite right. it's not picture-like, the scene seen through my dream, the "dreamscape", is nearly animated. it is perfect, but not quite real.

leaves are falling, slower than they would in real life, slower than i imagine would be possible in anything but in this dream. it's fall, and in my dream, it becomes dark super quickly.

too quickly.

it's dark now, early dark, and i look over the eastern horizon to see the yellow moon glowing behind the hazy autumn night.

harvest moon, i think in my dream.

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i remember that first conversation, that first night i really talked to you, and knew that i was meant to meet you. meant to learn from you, to be friends, to be.

we talked about everything that we seemed we could, and everything seemed without limitation.

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in my dream, i am sitting, watching.

watching maybe, the dreamscape is still night. still september.

and i hear your voice, you're quiet.

no, i think, just afraid.

but why? my dream-self thinks.

---

again, a sudden shift and the moon turns red. the blood moon, and it is october.

i realize that i am holding something in my hands, a book. i know, in my dream, where everything is heading. i am still sitting on the bench where we had our first real conversation more than two years before.

i look down at the books cover, and in my dream, i smile. it is harry potter and the half blood prince.

i look back up, and i feel the smile vanish, and know why your not there, in my dream i do at least.

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**
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rockie,

this is not a creepy dream or anything. no awkwardness, not that i intentionally put out there at least. i think, by how i felt as i woke is that you were just gone. that we didn't talk, or something happened, or something.

not sure exactly what.

i think, honestly, i feel... well, i am not sure how i feel.

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**
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i have been working on a poem called "dream again" for the last seven or so years. monday night i finished it, and feel, finally, as if i can truly come up with new ideas writing now.

that even though all the whispering voices from the dead that come from underneath my bed are here to stay, maybe they are meant to be heard.

because, after all, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

it is evolutions cruelest joke.

Used to Be We Knew Who We Were

it's weird when you hear that someone you have not seen, but were once close to, had been thinking of you. i get this e-mail , and it says, "i've been thinking of you. thinking of those stupid pictures we used to draw in physics.".

that is literally the entirety of the message. 16 words, 21 syllables.

at first, i was happy that someone had been thinking of me for no reason, then, i started to think about physics and how i felt about this person at the time we were "drawing those stupid pictures". i don't remember what they were of, because most of the time i was analyzing everything everything about devynne. i don't know why, i don't know why it mattered.

still don't, not really.

i tend to try to read people, and usually i am pretty good with it. i can read moods pretty well, lies and truth, anger, happiness.

maybe i shouldn't, but it's in my head that i need to. some compulsion (excessive?), a need, to understand how people are the way they are. i waste time doing this though. waste time thinking of why someone said this, or wrote this, or laughed at this joke, or smiled at me this way, or had a tone of anger in their voice, or kissed this way, hugged that way...

see what i mean?

thoughts, too much thinking kills me.

so here i am sitting on this computer for the first time in what feels like months, spilling out my soul, my thought-process, into the empty space of the internet.

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i miss people i still talk to.

contradictory, no? i mean, how could i miss someone i talk to on a  more or less regular basis?

i just do though, it feels like jennifer all over again... where i am losing touch with people for no reason, people i love, and i feel it's me at fault in some way.

it isn't me blaming myself, just how i feel.

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i used to know what it meant for me to be in love, and i am not going say i don't still know.

i guess that would be a lie. it's just that my definition of love is no longer the same, not since three months ago.

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i am just rambling. i guess i am just trying to say that i am not okay.

not okay.

Speed of Sound

Yesterdays how quick they change all lost and long gone now.
Want to remember anything moving at the speed of sound.
With the speed of sound.

And yet im still holding tight
To this dream of distant light
And yet somehow ill survive
But this night has been a long one
Waiting on a sun
Just don’t come

Can I forgive what I cannot forget
and live a lie?
I could give him one more try

Why deny this drive inside just looking for some peace
Everytime I get me some it gets the best of me
Not much left to see

And yet im still holding tight
To this dream of distant light
And that somehow ill somehow survive
But this night has been a long one
Waiting on a word
That never comes

The whisper in the dark
Is that you or just my thoughts?
Im wide awake and reaching out

Its gone so quiet now
Could it be I’m farther out
Moving faster than the speed of sound

Defining Circumstances

"i can't remember who said it first, and i mark it as one of life's great ironies: so often, the details of what shapes us most are forgotten over the course of our day-to-days. if we knew how important a moment was going to be to us one day, i imagine we would record it or preserve it better. sure- we'll pay through the nose to have our weddings videotaped; but can we say the same thing about the first time we discovered masturbation, or the moment we realized that the true nature of the opposite sex was to lie and humiliate? usually not."
-kevin smith

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this blog, along with the next two, are sort of an experiment. they are all going to be very loosely (even vaguely) connected, but hopefully, all will be pretty personal.

why?

i don't think i have enough "real" personal blogs posted, and i feel that is the point for this blog.

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i can think of only a handful of moments that have defined me: that have truly given a definition to me. maybe some of these events haven't really given meaning to me to others, but they have, in a short period of time, all given an understanding of me for myself.

and maybe that understanding of self is more important than some some projected half image.

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in order. order may be best.

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first kiss.

i think my first kiss is something that made me understand people, attraction, better than any event before (maybe since). it was something that just made me see things differently, even if those things i saw were still from an adolescent viewpoint.

my first kiss just meant so much to me. it was an event i didn't expect, didn't really see coming at the time, but something i think about constantly.

in fact, i wonder if there is going to be a kiss, or any physical act that will explain more in seconds than my first kiss had.

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first fight.

another "first", another event that explained so much so quickly.

getting hit in the face twice is something that i just won't forget. not because of pain, not because of surprise.

instead, i think it was the first time i felt hate. i knew the person this event happened with disliked me, but after those two hits to the face i knew that it went far beyond a simple sense of fucked-up teenage rivalry or angst.

it was hate.

and like love, it's just something that is incomprehensible, dangerous, and completely uncontrolled.

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freshman year was a very odd experience for me (hell, being honest, it is probably bizarre for many a 14 year old).

two things happened that defined pretty much my entire existence in high school.

one, i think i fell in love with "my best friends girl". or ex-girl. or something. but maybe love is too strong a word-- maybe it was more an insane infatuation. or maybe a misunderstanding.

but it defined me in ways i still sometimes think of from time to time: it made me realize that i would break friendships for relationships- a trend that undoubtedly it still within my blood, my mind, and my heart.

the other thing? megan.

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megan fucking was a bane and boon to my high school life. i loved her in ways i still, to this day, cannot, and will not explain nor question.

something she gave to me, something she made me into, made me me for the years that followed... and ninth grade we had only met. nothing happened.

nothing but a friendship formed in zero period earth sciences.

then came tenth grade, and the kiss i will never forget as long as i live. it remains to this day the best non-sexual physical experience of my life.

it's all a bit fucked up.

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tenth grade is also the time where i figured out i could get away with saying things through writing. i found out that i could express so much without vocally saying anything about anything. i could symbolize, i could write in metaphor, and it would all be meaningless to anyone but me.

and learning how to write in such a way is the most important out of mind, out of body, experience i ever have had.

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if you knew me in high school, in late 10th, 11th, and senior year, you know that i drank. a lot. too much.

it was also a habit, at times, i still find myself fighting back. still find myself unable to control without guidance from those who have stood by me for all the insane, intense, drinking periods.

but i would be a liar if i acted as if it didn't shape me in some way. drinking is a choice, but it was choice i made for knowing the consequences that would haunt me from day to day, moment to moment in the years that followed.

so much of my writing, so many of my current "philosophies" have come from the act.

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8/2/2006.

andrew saved my life, and for that i will love him forever.

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a little over a year later (or less?) i met rockie, who unknown to you (rockie) until now-- you also defined me in ways that i cannot explain.

not because of any one reason, not really. but you have been someone who i know i can depend on more than many of my closest, "forever"-known, friends.

and i love you for that.

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i think that's good for now. i'm leaving a lot out. obviously things that happen (or have happend) more than once i can't write much about (sex and the like)... i also am leaving things that happened previously to this presented time frame out. and things that have happened more recently.

there is so much more. specific teachers (the teals, missiakian, andrews), friends (jino, jennifer, colleen), family (my brother, my dad)...

there are always things that i just can't write. both good, bad, great and terrible.

or can't bring myself to write (my mom, and such things)... but i will.

i think this blog is really opening a purpose for those of you i have ask to read this.

so, next blog is on insanity, followed by love.

Education (Trade the Magic for Facts)

"i am questioning my education,
is my education who i am now?"
-Pearl Jam

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what makes us who we are on a day-to-day basis?

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i woke up today thinking about the question and what it means to us. all of us.

individually. as a group.

and i thought, i don't know.

so i thought, staring up at the white nothingness of my ceiling.

---

but, thinking about it today i really have to say that i believe it is our imaginations that make us who we are. i am also, slowly, starting to believe our educations break down the walls of our castles in the mind. our ability to say, looking up at the clouds passing overhead, "that one looks like a turtle".

"a bird."

"a castle in the sky".

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what am i trying to say, what point am i trying to get across?

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i think that the further things come in the world, the more we learn, individually or as a group, the less we can create (or imagine) anything new.

it's like when you are very young, and you look up at the night sky, at the full moon, and you wonder if the moon is following you over head.

then, just a few years later, you decipher that magic. realizing it's a trick, you trade it in for fact, and by doing so you trade in the magic of your imagination.

you lessen yourself through learning.

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i look at friends who are graduating, and what career paths they have chosen, be it business, education, or entertainment, and i just see them looking blankly at cubicles.

at white walls. and monotone.

monotony.

you get to a point where education is just a way for you to make money. yet along the way, no one seems to ask at what cost is the price you pay for losing what makes you you?

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you're told what to do, and ask no questions.

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i am not saying education is bad. i want to teach.

i just think that it lessens us to a point.

every semester i delve deeper into literature, into academic writing, and i find myself less able to come up with poems, with stories, with anything creative.

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i don't know. i just want to look at the clouds and know that it isn't just randomized.

i want to know what i see is a fucking bear, not just accumulated moisture.

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12:21

Infinite Space

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"i need no inspiration other then nature's. she has never failed me. she mystifies me, bewilders me, sends me into ecstasies. besides god's handiwork, does not man's fade into insignificance?"

-Gandhi

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the picture above is one of the few things i have seen shown in photographically that has changed me in some way. it's actually more than one photo, taken by hubble, it's of different regions of the "space sky" that have been put together into one large, cohesive, image.

over 3,000 objects, and scientists believe that most are entire galaxies, with planets, suns, comets, everything that that word "galaxy" evokes is in that image.

think about it, it's almost a picture of infinity. of the abyss. the possiblilties of that image are impossible to comprehend.

the picture changed my life. truly.

it makes me think, everytime i see it, just how insignifigant we are. yet at the same time it drives me to understand myself, my surroundings, more than before.

it's almost spiritual, almost religious.

i look at that picture, and, to me, it drives me to learn more. to understand everything just a little more than i do now.

it also makes me ponder my own spirtituality... or at least it makes me understand why people strive to keep faith in god, or whatever higher power they believe in a little more. i see why people want to understand, or believe, that they have a place to go after death because the image is a fearful one on two ends.

on one end, again, the image is the closest we have yet to come in showing the infinite. when i, when anyone, sees the image, they have to think that dieing is a tragedy when we know that there is so much more to see.

so much more that we can't comprehend.

yet on the otherhand, some religions believe their version of hell is infinite. is just blackness. nothingness.

and while this image is the opposite of nothingness, everytime i see it, i almost get lost in what i can't see. there are so many points of light, that really, i can't wrap my mind around the possibilites of what they are. and getting lost in something like that is a terrible why to imagine nothing.

to image nothing as being everything is terrible.

i love this photograph. i love what it shows, what it leaves to the imagination, and most of all i love how it makes me think. how it makes me wonder just how much we don't know.

how small we each are, and how perfect nature (for lack of a better term) is to us.

it just humbles me, it makes me see that humans are NOT some god at the center of the universe.

no, it makes me understand that we are on the outside of the outside, looking into windows of the universe's soul.

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"two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity... and i'm not sure about the universe"

-albert einstein

"if the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe, and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was the dark. dark would be without meaning"

-c.s. lewis

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time: 14:28

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note: no second viewing of up today. probably tuesday.

Without Judgment (Pry, To post)

"Strangely, although music is something to listen to, I think music listens back because there's no judgments. A kid can find something he identifies with. Or an adult. Here's a place you can go to where [there are no] judgments. [There is not] someone telling you what to believe in."

-Marilyn Manson

Does music listen to you?

I don't know what to think of this quote, by a man, that, admittedly, whos music is unknown to me. But something about this quote is so meaningful to me that I can't deny it holds some truth.

Whenever I am down, I can go into my iTunes and find a song that will either uplift me or will be perfect for whatever mood I am; sad, lonely, loved, in-love, happy. Whatever. I can find something that knows.

Or at least fits.

It's odd how music can do this. How I can find a set of words, lyrics, that describe exactly how I feel at the moment in time.

How I can hear music, drum beats, guitar rifts, bass chords, piano compositions, and it just feels right. Feels right for how I feel. How I am. Whatever. And not only do I see these as fitting me "alone", but also I take it all as one, and it still fits. Lyric with sound, sound with lyrics, and it still fits.

Also, music, in many ways identifies who we are. We grow up with some types, myself "oldies", or grunge, or even rap... and it symbolizes our growing up. It makes us remember specific events of our childhood based on hearing a song. Music can recall memory, and sometimes, I guess, memory can recall a certain song. A certain feeling.

Then we grow, and we pick and choose what music means to us based on who we are.

Punk, rap, rock, country, classical, soundtrack compositions, techno, R&B; all these sounds, and all the people listening to the same songs, that millions, or no one, listens to and we still find a way to make it ours.

We grow up and music is ours. We find a popular song, a popular sound, and it probably means something different to me than it would to anyone else. Than the songwriter, than my best friends, to strangers.

Everyone.

Someone else's music is always mine alone. Meaning. Sound. We all hear it differently. It makes us, our music defines us.

It's an old friend to cry to.

It's a new friend to meet.

It's who we are. When we are alone. With friends. In the center of a crowd, our music may sometimes know us best.

It never judges. It's a friend that has so much to say, but who always listens.

Surface

through the eyes of thought you have to believe there is something more inside yourself than what you present to the ones around you on a day-to-day basis. 

i'm not really talking on a conscience level either, but maybe in an "under the surface" way.

last night i wrote this drunken haze poem, and it was not very long, but something in it struck me for whatever reason because it was something that i didn't think outwardly. didn't "project". to others, to myself, it was something below whatever surface hiding behind my breaking mind.

"all these times

shattered like a memory

rising through the mind like a morning haze

and we await the long sunset

where you have been you

and i have been me

next to the seashore

where you remembered 

all the times

that we never shared"

i wrote these  lines and i know what they meant. sort of, i know why i wrote them, and thinking that they were not about what they may look like they are about at first glance, and really the whole thing is really about myself. not anyone.

myself, and what i am doing wasting time. 

i don't know. i think, after last night, that there is so much we don't know about ourselves. about how we feel. about how we feel about others.

destinations.

dreams, aspirations, fears and regrets.

it's all just behind the surface of our minds. just waiting. 

it's all just hard to imagine, and because we can't express...

Maybe

climbing up to the mountaintop where you know the view will only be of polluted cityscapes and hazy skies that lack the baby-blue sheen that that world has forgotten, you think, maybe.

just a single word made into a world of possibilities, it is what is driving you to the mountain's epic top but ultimate letdown. along the way you see cracked rocks, running streams, and an eagle soaring: all of which remind you that the world is still full of some second rate nature that a photograph can no longer capture in perfection.

you continue the climb, thinking about the past, and like moses atop mount sinai, you hope that mayhap some revelation is awaiting up on high. you think, again, maybe. 

it is that word that holds you in thrall. maybe is an exception, almost like saying, "but", just with different defining qualities.

yet, the climb you climb, knowing that maybe is a possible outcome of what is essentially an exodus and an odyssey, is what you feel you must do. it is a driving force taking you further and further away from what could be your personal perfection.

your door to other worlds is ignored as you climb to the mountaintop that could hold death, despair, loneliness, all wrapped up in some hideous approximation of destiny.

yet maybe is all you think of, maybe.

maybe.